Nature-cultures do not exist! Ontological propositions at the Biology-Anthropology interface

Abstract The nature/culture dualism in West has long been questioned. This article proposes some reflections on theoretical approaches that seek to overcome this division within Anthropology and Biology. From the view of Anthropology, perspectives related to its “ontological turn” are discussed. But it is in Tim Ingold’s concept of “environment” that a solution for the problem is recognized here. Within the scope of Biology, thinkers such as Richard Lewontin, Georges Canguilhem, and Jakob von Uexküll, in addition to the concepts of Niche Construction and Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, are focused on. The meeting of these conceptions, with independent origins, constitutes a new opportunity for dialogue between Biology and Anthropology. More than this, the reconceptualization of “environment”, “history”, and “ecology”, can represents a true overcoming of the dualism in discussion, in its ontological dimension. Implications of these revisionisms for themes at the Society-Environment interface, involving Human Evolution, Human Ecology, Historical Ecology, Domestication, and Socio-Ecological Systems, are problematized.